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380
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
fixed-nobody would apply himself to knowledge.—If, again, a man dying at night should wait for the dawn (to mount upwards), it might happen that, owing to the action of the funeral fire, &c., his body would, at the time of daybreak, not be capable of entering into connexion with the rays. Scripture moreover expressly says that he does not wait, 'As quickly as he sends off the mind he goes to the sun '(Kh. Up. VIII, 6, 5).—For all these reasons the soul follows the rays by night as well as by day.
20. And for the same reason (the departed soul follows the rays) also during the southern progress of the sun.
For the same reason, viz. because waiting is impossible, and because the fruit of knowledge is not a merely eventual one, and because the time of death is not fixed, also that possessor of true knowledge who dies during the southern progress of the sun obtains the fruit of his knowledge. Because dying during the northern progress of the sun is more excellent, and because Bhishma is known to have waited for that period, and because scripture says, 'From the light half of the month (they go to the six months when the sun goes to the north,' it might be thought that the northern progress of the sun is needful for dying This notion the Satra refutes. The greater excellence of the sun's northern progress applies to those only who do not possess the highest knowledge.-Bhîshma's waiting for the sun's northern progress was due to his wish of upholding good customs and of showing that by the favour of his father he could choose the time of his death. And the sense of the scriptural passage quoted will be explained under IV, 3, 4.-But we have the following Smriti-text, 'At what times the Yogins depart either not to return or to return, those times I will declare to thee' (Bha. Gîtà VIII, 23), which determines specially that to die by day and so on causes the soul not to return. How then can he who dies by night or during the sun's southern progress depart not to return? Concerning this point the next Satra remarks:
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